The Disorder of Political Inquiry
Published on 30. June 2005
Book
Hardback
336 pages
978-0-674-01678-1 (ISBN)
Description
In the past several years two academic controversies have migrated from the classrooms and courtyards of college and university campuses to the front pages of national and international newspapers: Alan Sokal's hoax, published in the journal Social Text, and the self-named movement, "Perestroika," that recently emerged within the discipline of political science. Representing radically different analytical perspectives, these two incidents provoked wide controversy precisely because they brought into sharp relief a public crisis in the social sciences today, one that raises troubling questions about the relationship between science and political knowledge, and about the nature of objectivity, truth, and meaningful inquiry in the social sciences. In this provocative and timely book, Keith Topper investigates the key questions raised by these and other interventions in the "social science wars" and offers unique solutions to them.
Engaging the work of thinkers such as Richard Rorty, Charles Taylor, Pierre Bourdieu, Roy Bhaskar, and Hannah Arendt, as well as recent literature in political science and the history and philosophy of science, Topper proposes a pluralist, normative, and broadly pragmatist conception of political inquiry, one that is analytically rigorous yet alive to the notorious vagaries, idiosyncrasies, and messy uncertainties of political life.
Engaging the work of thinkers such as Richard Rorty, Charles Taylor, Pierre Bourdieu, Roy Bhaskar, and Hannah Arendt, as well as recent literature in political science and the history and philosophy of science, Topper proposes a pluralist, normative, and broadly pragmatist conception of political inquiry, one that is analytically rigorous yet alive to the notorious vagaries, idiosyncrasies, and messy uncertainties of political life.
Reviews / Votes
This thoughtful and well-informed book casts a great deal of light on the 'social science wars': an often fierce struggle over methods and techniques which also reflects profound differences in philosophy among social scientists. Topper shows how close argument and imaginative sympathy can carry the debate forward. This is a lucid and engaging book, full of important insights about the ways in which we try to study society. -- Charles Taylor, author of <i>Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity</i> This book addresses the persisting 'crisis' in political and social science and charts a way out of it. In the context of the latest round of debates about method, it revisits such abiding general questions as the unity or disunity between the natural and social sciences; the peculiar character of social scientific inquiry; the relationship between social science and political practice; and the entanglement of method and power. Topper negotiates his way through this thicket of issues with intelligence and clarity, and in doing so he provides us with many valuable insights into the contemporary situation of political inquiry. -- Thomas A. McCarthy, Northwestern University This is a much-needed book that negotiates its way with great intelligence through a variety of difficult issues in the philosophy of the social sciences. -- Stephen White, University of VirginiaMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge, Mass
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
US School Grade: College Graduate Student
Illustrations
none
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
635 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-674-01678-1 (9780674016781)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Keith Topper
The Disorder of Political Inquiry
E-Book
07/2009
Harvard University Press
€171.99
Available for download
Person
Keith Topper is Assistant Professor of Communication Studies and Political Science at Northwestern University.
Content
Acknowledgments Introduction: The Social Science Wars Social Science Wars I Social Science Wars II Debating the Foundations of Political Science Sciences of Uncertainty I: Science Turned Upside Down Philosophy, Foundationalism, and Linguistic Pragmatism Rorty's View of Natural Science Conclusion II: In Defense of Disunity Pragmatic Naturalism and the Social Sciences Hermeneutics Revisited Conclusion III: The Politics of Redescription Redescription Applied Contingency, Self-Creation, and Change Redescription and Politics Conclusion IV: Reclaiming the Language of Emancipation Roy Bhaskar's Critical Realism Critical Realism as a Philosophy for the Sciences Critical Naturalism, and the Stakes of Social Inquiry Ontology, Causation, and Social Criticism, and Social Criticism Conclusion V: Sciences that Disturb Pierre Bourdieu's 'Fieldwork in Philosophy' From the Practice of Theory to the Theory of Practice Ordinary Violences Conclusion Conclusion: Pluralism, Power, Perestroika, and Political Inquiry Perestroika and Methodological Pluralism Hegemonic Political Science and Methodological Monism The Contest of Methodological Disunity Revitalizing Political Inquiry Notes Index